Mistakes and Mayhem

I want to love this event. This should be everything I adore about Transformers in a nice tight action-packed story. Increasingly I feel that it’s not. This is being marketed as a big blockbuster event, and I find myself mystified as to why.
The issue begins with Ironhide and Chromia on Caminus having a heart-to-heart in which they try to talk out Chromia’s callous civilian murders. It’s not gripping, it’s not soul-searching, it’s only explanatory by the barest of measures. Mostly it’s boring, but it encourages Chromia to try to keep the bridge open (or at least undestroyed) later, before she tells Windblade she’s sorry again. Everything about it is awkwardly forced and feels like Scott grudgingly wrote it out to try to shut up those who keep wondering why Chromia isn’t in a cell. “There, I addressed it, now can we move on?”
This issue also features a Superion and Devastator brawl and a second fight where Defensor joins in, and it’s fantastic. I think it is anyway. I’ve defended Ramondelli’s art before; I honestly think he doesn’t get enough credit for some of the stuff he’s done. Unfortunately this is not some of that stuff. This fight is insane–it might actually have been mapped out by playing with the toys, as a lot of weird things that a kid might do (or at least wonder about) when playing with Combiners happens here. My favorite part is when a prone Superion turns his foot into a hand so he can punch Devastator in the back of the head. How cool is that?! Sadly the art is just… muddy. All the dark colors run together, there’s a shower of sparks over half the details, and there’s a yellow filter on everything just in case you could actually make it out. Then the fight moves to Cybertron and happens in a giant poorly-lit room so that when I want to be able to see even more of it I instead see even less.
I dearly want this to be the awesome event we all talk about for years. It deserves to be. It has the talent and it has the support. It’s the sort of story that should be setting the bar, but instead I feel like it’s just meandering through some paces to generate more pack-in comics.
Ultimately, that’s the thought that bothers me. Are these issues going to be packed into the toys? I’m sorry to say this, but I really hope not. This story (as a whole or in parts) would not get me to pick up monthly Transformers comics, so they’re not really succeeding at anything Combiner Wars has been advertised as.Discuss this comic in our forums!